And me I get so tired

I'm utterly exhausted! We've just had our first rehearsal for the concert on November 27th. It was a second tenor sectional, and it went extremely well. It was particularly useful to see how difficult each of the pieces of music are to learn. The irony, of course, is that we polished off learning all the Lincolnshire songs within seconds. They truly are the easiest pieces of music I've ever written! I can only assume that the choir leader has an extremely low opinion of what her choir is capable of! 

The most difficult song in our set is probably my arrangement of Mr Blue Sky. It shouldn't be hard, but the intricacies of Jeff Lynne's writing can make the internal parts seem somewhat random - particularly for a non-music reader (of which there are several in the choir) or someone who doesn't know the original song.

Anyway, running a tenor sectional with suspected whooping cough is no laughing matter. Every time I sang too high or forgot to breath, I'd be rewarded with another coughing/honking fit. I was hoping to go to the doctor's today to have my official test, but I had a phone call in the afternoon which informed me that the laboratory who issue the swabs weren't answering the surgery's calls. Oh, the blinking NHS... 

350 years ago Pepys went to St Olave's church and sat in the fancy Navy pew with the two Sir Williams. The hot topic of conversation was the death of Robert Slingsby. Pepys was devastated, but was dubious as to whether the two Sir Williams were feeling the pain as much as he was. The pain he felt when he saw his wife's old-fashioned, and rather threadbare mourning garb was a great deal more tangible. He wrote that he was ashamed to take her into the church! Poor Elizabeth.